Play & Edit 3 Walkthrough

This Play & Edit is quite advanced stuff. We’ll be setting up some battle room emitters, using keyframes to set up some traps, and doing some more advanced wiring. Above all, however, we’re going to learn about optimising enemies and traps in order to demonstrate how best to minimise demands on the thermometer. Optimisation entails some tricky concepts, but vital if you want to make bigger, fuller, more complex dungeons.

Lesson 1#

Heat it up!#

Have you noticed the thermometer yet? Let’s take a look at it now. Go to show/hide and turn on thermometer. Now search for and stamp a Skele-Grabber. Now clone it a couple of times. Watch what happens to the thermometer. Try and add a 4th Skele-Grabber and you’re prevented. This is one of the most expensive character elements. What do we do? It’s a big level with no enemies stamped. Three Skele-Grabbers is not enough! Panic ye not. This play & edit is all about learning to make the most of our elements. Once you’ve seen the thermometer and understand the problem, delete or undo the Skele-Grabbers and switch back to play mode.

Lesson 2#

Optimisation in practice.#

So now we know we’re tight on gameplay memory, let’s learn how to optimise the elements we want to stamp. First of all, let’s get familiar with the element you’re going to optimise. Turn off preview invisibility. Notice there are three Stalactite Trap Triggers and only one Stalactite Trap Effects. Scope in to each Trap Trigger element with +, open the microchip (l1>+) and tweak the emitters with +. Note Stalactite Trap Effects flash when you hover over object to emit. It’s the same with all three triggers - they’re all using the same reference. The effects group has been extracted from one of the elements and is being used to make the effects appear three times, while using the same memory for each. When you’re happy you understand the relationship between the Trap Triggers and the Trap Effects, head back to play mode.

Lesson 3#

Optimisation Step 1#

Now it’s time to try out this optimisation for yourself. Search for and stamp the Stalactite Trap in the space provided. Turn preview invisibility is on and off again to remind yourself which part of the element is the Effects Group - it’ll disappear and reappear. Leave preview invisibility off and scope in to the element with +. It can be helpful to turn on hide everything else (context menu) as it helps visualise being inside/outside the scope of the element. Pick up the Effects Group with . While holding it, press + to move it out of the element. The transition from inside to outside will be clear if you used hide everything else. Plonk the Effects Group in the space provided. It can go anywhere really, but this keeps it nice and tidy. Now head back to play mode.

Lesson 4#

Optimisation Step 2#

Now that the effects have been moved out of the Stalactite Trap, we can clone the trigger part. You can leave preview invisibility off or turn it back on again, up to you. Hover over the Optimised Stalactite element and use + to clone it to the marked positions. Each of these clones will be using the same emission reference we just removed. When you’re ready go back to play mode.

Lesson 5#

Hit the floor!#

Elements like the stalactites do damage using health modifiers, so we can use health managers to destroy things with them, and use keyframes to animate what we’re up to. We’ll make these floor pieces moveable so that they’re affected by physics, but not collidable as that could cause physics problems. Hover over the keyframe on a highlighted floor piece and press + to begin recording. Tweak the attached floor piece with +. Go to the physics tab. Set moveable to on and collidable to off. Both properties should highlight with crosshatch to show they’re animated. Use + to stop recording. Now repeat all that for all 3 keyframes. Finally, clone your previously optimised stalactite with + and place them in the marked spots.

Lesson 6#

Optimise your monster.#

Let’s practise some more optimisation, this time on an enemy. Enemies will almost always have some emitted effects, for their death animation at the very least. Search for and stamp one of the enemies provided in AD Play & Edit 3: Elements. Make sure preview invisibility is off and scope in to the enemy with +. Grab the Effects Group with and, while holding it, press + to scope out. As before, hide everything else will help visualise what’s going on here. Stamp the effects in the area provided and switch back to play mode.

Lesson 7#

Two for one!#

Enemies are expensive even when you’ve optimised their effects. So let’s get two enemies for the price of one. Stamp a monster in the space. For extra credit, do the effects optimisation we’ve shown you. Then tweak an emitter with +. On the first page you’ll see a tweak called object to emit. Hover over it and press . Move your imp over the monster and press again. This is telling the emitter what you want emitted. If you’ve got preview invisibility on, the monster will disappear as it’s become a reference object, so turn off preview invisibility so you can see it. Repeat the steps to assign the monster to the other emitter. Head back into play mode, smash the barrels to trigger the emitters, and defeat the enemies.

Lesson 8#

What else can we emit?#

Emitters aren’t just for traps and enemies. Use them to emit any expensive gameplay element you want to appear many times in a scene - health potions, other collectables, even doorways! In this play & edit all the one-way doors and forcefields are emitted, as well as all the enemies once you’re finished. Turn off preview invisibility and notice that the health potion’s already been optimised - the effects group is outside of it. This health potion is the emitter reference for every single potion in the scene! Tweak the emitter with + and assign the potion as the emitter reference as you did before - press over object to emit and again over the potion. Go back to play mode and smash the container to emit the health potion.

Lesson 9#

Impassable fire!#

Remember how we’ve scoped in previously to fix broken traps? Well this time let’s use x-ray instead. Go to show/hide and turn on x-ray. You might also want to turn preview invisibility back on so you can see better. Now activate the Alternate On/Off switch with . Then use the Alternate Frequency value slider to set how often it cycles. X-ray is a super-useful show/hide filter, as it exposes logic, letting you adjust things without having to scope in. Head back to play mode and continue.

Lesson 10#

Scope it again, Sam.#

Time for more scoping. Here the lift and Lever Switch are wired together already, but we want the switch inside the moving part of the lift so that the switch and lift move together and we can operate it. In order to do that, we need to move the switch into the moving part’s group, which is nested two scope levels deep. Nested groups (groups within groups) allow you to decide which parts of an element move with which other parts.

Again, it's a good idea to turn on hide everything else (context menu) when scoping as it can be easier to visualise moving through scopes.Pick up and hold the lever switch with . Hover over the lift and scope in with +. Don't let go of yet. Scope in a second time with + to move the switch into the moving part of the lift and place it on the marker. Head back to play mode and whack that switch to travel in the lift.

Lesson 11#

Pick your battle.#

Let’s set up some more emitters, this time on the Battle Room Logic microchip. You want obey auto guides on and preview invisibility off. Search and stamp a monster, unless you want to be really smart and reuse the monster you used before. Open the Battle Room Logic microchip with +. Tweak one of the emitters and set object to emit as before, by pressing over object to emit and again over what you want to emit. Either use the stamped monster or follow the red line to use the previous one. Repeat for the other emitter and then head back to play mode.

Lesson 12#

Let’s get this gate open!#

Let's remind ourselves about combining elements. Search and stamp a Lever Switch in the space. Hover over the output port on the switch's yellow node and press to make a wire. Move to the input port on the purple node on the Portcullis and press to connect the wire. The correct ports have dotted white lines around them.

Let’s just take a moment on ports. The input port is always on the left, and the output port is always on the right. But depending on how you stamp something, it may not always be immediately obvious - it may have gotten turned around. Just make sure that the front of the node is facing you - the front has a bold square outline around the icon on the gadget - and then you’ll know you’re looking at the correct side.

This Portcullis is wired up to an AND gate which is controlling the main gates at the centre of the scene. At the end of the next section you’ll be placing another switch.You’ll need both to open the main gate. Head back to play mode and strike the switch to carry on.

Lesson 13#

An old classic.#

Back to emitters! As we said, emitters can be used to emit just about anything, and many elements you are stamping will already have emitters. Like traps. Let's have a go at setting up a trap. First off, make sure preview invisibility is off. Open the Rolling Ball Trap Logic microchip with +. The trigger zone which triggers the trap needs to be wired to the emitter to power it. Press over the output port on the right side of the trigger zone. Move to the power port on the bottom of the emitter (it’ll appear once you create the wire). If you select the trigger zone with you can see where the zone is. When the player passes through this the trigger zone will detect them and fire the emitter. Don’t switch to play just yet - we need to set up the emitter. Tweak the emitter with + and set the object to emit to the large spiky ball you can see to the right. Now head back to play mode and run!

Lesson 14#

Getting comfortable with logic.#

This Lever Switch doesn’t seem to be working. Let’s fix that. Scope in to the lift with +, or turn on x-ray. Note the Set Lift Travel Height value slider. This sets both the distance the lift travels, and the direction. A negative number to go down and a positive one to go up. So on 0 it's going nowhere! Press and hold over the slider and drag left to set it to -2. This will make the lift go all the way down when triggered. Head back to play mode and hit that switch.

Lesson 15#

Gimme a wave!#

Time to set up another battle room. This time we have 4 emitters to set object to emit for. You can stamp new monsters or reuse some from previous lessons (follow the red dotted line). If you stamp new ones it’s best to perform the effects optimisations you learned earlier. You could even set a different monster for the second wave if you like.

Make sure obey auto guides is on and preview invisibility is off. Open the Battle Room With Waves Logic microchip with +. Note there are two trigger zones. The Wave 2 Trigger activates after the first wave of monsters is defeated. Stamp a monster, or reuse one from a previous battle to save gameplay memory. Tweak each of the 4 emitters and set object to emit to your chosen monster(s). Head back to play mode and defeat both waves to progress past the Forcefield.

Lesson 16#

Let’s switch again...#

The final lesson! It’s a repeat of lesson 12 - remember we said you’d need to add another switch for the main gate? Search and stamp a Lever Switch in the space. Hover over the output port on the switch's yellow node and press to make a wire. Move to the input port on the purple node on the Portcullis and press to connect the wire. The correct ports have dotted white lines around them. As we said before, this Portcullis is wired up to an AND gate which is controlling the main gates at the centre of the scene. You’ll need to strike both to open the main gate. Head back to play mode and strike the switch to carry on.

Main Gate#

The main gate is really just an example more than a lesson. You’ll need to complete both paths of the dungeon in a single play session to open the gate.

Phew! You made it! Play & Edit 3 was a much tougher one than the other two, but hopefully you’ve learned lots of things you can use in your own dungeons. Time to fire up the Foundation and get creating if you haven’t already!